David Meyer at GigaOM noted the latest tests by Alcatel-Lucent’s (ALU) venerable Bell Labs division. The lab has figured out how to increase the bandwidth of submarine cables by a factor of three. They were able to move traffic at 31 Terabits per second (Tbps).
Alcatel-Lucent says it has broken the record for the amount of data that can be pushed through submarine cables. They claim to have achieved 31 Terabits per second over a single fiber that’s 4,474 miles long. For comparison, the Register figured that the average 15 minute, low-res movie is about 100Mb in size. They calculate that the new cable could speed 40,632 flix across the Atlantic every second. That would be enough for 423 days and nights of non-stop video viewing – in just one second.
It is important to remember we’re talking about a lab test. The test took place at ALU’s Innovation City campus in Villarceaux near Paris. The GigaOm article notes that the researchers with Bell Labs squeezed almost 10 Tbps more out of the fiber than the 21.7Tbps that NEC (6701) and Verizon (VZ) managed last year. This is three times roomier than in today’s most advanced commercial undersea cables.
Transoceanic cable
The author points out that that’s just one fiber and a transoceanic cable may have eight pairs of fibers. Again, this is a lot of capacity. However, it’s also worth noting that Alcatel-Lucent’s tests required a signal amplifier every 100km along the line.
The article claims that ALU’s Bell Labs division has done this type of research since 1925 in New Jersey. This type of work is more critical to ALU than ever. In June 2013, Alcatel-Lucent announced its “Shift Plan”, which involves moving away from being a telecoms equipment generalist. They want to be a specialist in IP networking and mobile and fixed broadband access. Philippe Keryer, Alcatel-Lucent’s chief strategy, and innovation officer said in a statement:
Undersea fiber-optic transmission is integral to the digital economy, delivering vast amounts of video and data between countries, regions and continents. As our customers cope with increasing demand on their networks for data capacity and higher-speeds of transmission, our researchers are intensifying their application with tests like this to develop new technology solutions to transform global data networks.
Mr. Meyer explains the test used Bell Labs’s technique for squeezing 200Gbps through a single data channel. It used 155 lasers, each one carrying 200Gbps at a different frequency. This represents an enhancement to the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) techniques that run at up to 100Gbps in today’s commercially deployed cable.
Normally such signals suffer from distortions and noise, which limit performance. But GigaOM understands that Alcatel-Lucent was able to resolve this by using an enhanced version of WDM. The enhanced WDM works by splitting light up into different wavelengths so that it can carry more data.
Long-haul high-speed networking
The pace of development in the long-haul high-speed networking field is impressive. It’s easy to see just how far we’ve come. GigaOM provided a quick look at some of the other recent developments in long-haul high-speed networking.
- May 2011 a team of German, UK, and Swiss scientists successfully used Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) to send data at a rate of 26Tbps over a 50km long single-mode fiber optic cable.
- January 2012 a Japanese team working out of NEC successfully transmitted 4Tbps over a single “ultra-long haul” (10,000km) fiber optic cable without repeaters by making use of WDM just like Alcatel-Lucent.
- May 2013 a more exotic approach with the UK test of hollow fiber optic cable that delivered speeds of 73.7 Tbps.
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Remember that the NSA has a submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter designed to tap undersea telecom cables on the bottom of the sea. This new speed record could be used to spy on more people.
Related articles
- Alcatel-Lucent Cuts Go Deeper – 7,500 Jobs Gone and Counting (slashdot.org)
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
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